Agriculture & Vanilla
It all begins with an idea. And it becomes reality — with hardwork and dedication.
FARMING. ORGANIC. VANILLA.
Uganda is known for its fertile earth and accommodating growing climate. Being in equatorial Africa, Uganda enjoys a full-year of farming seasons. Families everywhere work to maintain and grow their gardens, to provide the food and income potential to sustain life. The heart of Develop Sustainability is to cultivate the existing aptitudes & resources of a community and to help nurture those skills into expertise and open new pathways towards tangible economic growth.
We don’t want to reinvent the wheel, just come up with ways to make it roll more smoothly.
Farming was a natural first-step for Develop Sustainability, in Uganda. Alongside our Aquaponics farming, we began to work and enrich the available soil, and plant seeds in the ground. For years, these gardens gave supplemental food to our staff & apprentices. And as the gardens grew, we began to provide the excesses of harvests to the primary school and other struggling households within the community.
Our Agriculture Apprenticeship programs focused on organic pesticides, organic fertilization/composting, efficient movement of rainwater, harvesting seeds, nutrient soil conversions, add-value farming, intercropping and Permaculture to provide shelter for crops in the sometimes brutal weather-scape of farming alongside the second largest freshwater lake in the world— Lake Victoria, historically & locally named Lake Nalubaale. Our organizations vision and its programs are founded to improve and expand gradually and organically — and farming was no different.
Next steps are always on the horizon…
VANILLA.
It is the world’s second costliest spice. When you think spices… you don’t always think ‘Farming’. But indeed farming is where spices come from. The Vanilla Planifolia Orchids is a climbing vine that thrives in Uganda’s lake climates, as a mark of its specific equatorial position on the Earth.
Distinctly and uniquely, Uganda has 2 Vanilla Bean flowering and harvest seasons, every year — Ugandan Vanilla growing seasons are unlike any other vanilla growing regions of the world.
In 2019, Develop Sustainability endeavored into The Vanilla Project. Our Vanilla farming quickly grew during the Covid Crisis of 2020-2021, through lock-downs, land expansions and extending opportunities to our surrounding communities, as an Add-value Farming Co-op Initiative. Develop Sustainability grows acres of our own Vanilla Planifolia and also offers above fair-market value, when purchasing fresh green vanilla beans from local community farmers.
Vanilla Farming, Pollinating, Curing and all of the various stages of production are part of a complex, long and labor intensive process! Results require an investment of time & patience, that is hard to grasp— especially for those that are struggling to provide a simple meal and school fees for their family each day, to the next. However through demonstration and other initiatives, the community is learning the longterm value of investment and results, as their diligence is met with the financial rewards that are worth their time, energy and commitment— and are more beneficial than a singular traditional farming crop.
Our teams continue to work diligently to set the stage for this sustainable crop to flourish in our rural Ugandan communities. The Vanilla Project is part of how we as an organization - lead by example for our surrounding communities and is a sustainability factor that we hope can continue to support initiatives, and to recharge the organization and our community, as we grow into the future.
You can taste the amazing goodness, and know that you are helping to sustain Ugandan families.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
